Rabbit polyclonal antibody to Bcl~X (S56)

Overexpression of Bax accelerates apoptotic death induced by cytokine deprivation in an IL~3~dependent cell line, and Bax also counters the death repressor activity of Bcl~2. Bcl~x, one of several additional proteins with sequence homology to Bcl~2, is expressed as Bcl~xL, a 233 amino acid protein with 43% sequence identity with Bcl~2 that suppresses cell death, and Bcl~xS, a shorter variant that is 178 amino acids in length and lacks a 63 amino acid region (amino acids 126~188) found in Bcl~xL and which functions as a dominant inhibitor of Bcl~2. A further apoptosis~inducing protein, Bad, dimerizes both with Bcl~xL and to a lesser extent with Bcl~2, thus displacing Bax and inducing apoptosis